


Sometimes I Have Cried

by Bitterblue33



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Child Neglect, Family, Found Families, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-09 15:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14718422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue33/pseuds/Bitterblue33
Summary: She hadn’t meant to be so blunt, to throw it out like a trivial no-nothing: “Do you want to add another son to our family—17 years old, emotional baggage included?” AKA Why the Jensens decide to adopt Justin.Now with Parts 2 and 3: Clay reacts to the news and makes his decision.





	1. A Question of Adoption

“What do you think about adopting Justin?”

She hadn’t meant to be so blunt, to throw it out like a trivial no-nothing: “Should there be more salt in the sauce?” “Do you want to go hiking on the trails this weekend with Clay?” “Do you want to add another son to our family—17 years old, emotional baggage included?”

Matt lowered the book he was reading and stared blankly, the table an infinite expanse between them. 

“That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it? Emergency custody?” He humored her with a smile, although she knew him well enough to know that he hadn’t misunderstood her at all.

“No, Matt.” She settled her work bag on the table. “That’s essentially an emergency foster placement. It won’t last long before Justin becomes a ward of the state. I'm asking what you think about adoption.”

The smile on his face had gone, replaced by a blank canvas, inscrutable. “Adoption, as in legally making him our son?”

“That is generally what adoption means, yes.”

“We have a son, Lainie.”

“Yes, and if we do this, we would have two.” Unnecessarily perhaps, she added: “Legally.” 

The silence lasted a beat. Then another.

Matt cleared his throat. “And what exactly is involved in this proposal? What are the steps?”

Matt’s voice had turned studious, and Lainie recognized that he was only indulging her, letting her talk her way through a case that had no win, a case with no loopholes or out-clauses to exploit.

She pretended she hadn’t noticed.

“Well, initially there’s not much that we weren’t already going to have to do anyway. We would still have to complete the pre-service training for fostering, but, because it’s an emergency foster, we've gotten a waiver and we're allowed to delay fostering classes until after Justin is released into our care, so that’s not an issue. We’d have to have a home-study and schedule all the required inspections and fill out a lot of paperwork, which you know I don't mind. It won't be an imposition. We’ve already had a legal search for Amber Foley, so parental rights termination shouldn’t be an issue. We’d just have to meet with Justin’s social worker, get a lawyer, and schedule a court date.”

“Just that, huh?” Matt set down his book, closing it with deliberate slowness as he looked up at her.

“I thought you were getting along very well with Justin,” she pointed out, fully aware that compatibility of personality was no basis on which to decide to adopt a child.

“I was,” he gritted. “I like the boy, Lainie. And my heart goes out to him, it really does. But, you have to admit we barely know him.”

Suddenly, he was rising out of his seat, the chair scraping back against the floor, the discordant screeches matching his rising, annoyed tone.

“And think about what do we know for sure. He’s been abusing heroin, in our own son’s room for god’s sake! He runs away when there’s a hint of conflict. He lied to his girlfriend about being raped by his friend and didn’t report it to the police.” His voice lowered, logic replacing emotion. “He needs the best parenting, the best professional help available. Social services needs to handle him long-term, not two adults who met him a month ago.”

“All those reasons you listed... Matt, they're exactly why I want to adopt him.” 

“Lainie, what’s changed for you?” He was merely placating her now. “The goal was to get Justin through the trial, which we did.” His hands punctuated the fact with a silent thump in the air. “And we’re getting him out of juvenile detention and giving him a place to stay. We'll get him the help he needs. I fail to see how that is not enough.”

Lainie sighed. It was true, every word Matt had said. It had been the plan. She wasn’t an optimist, couldn’t be after being a lawyer for so long and seeing how even the best intentions could lead a person to ruin, how good and moral people could find themselves in a bad set of circumstances and make one single choice that would stain all the past good works of their life. She hadn’t set out to change Justin’s trajectory. But–

"What he needs, Matt, more than anything else, is stability. Permanence. Unconditional, lasting support. Love." She reached for her work bag and pulled out the folder she had received from Justin’s caseworker and placed it on the table, pushing it down towards Matt. He glanced at it skeptically and then began to flip through the pages. She could sense the reluctance, see the way his eyes skimmed the documents, trying not to connect emotionally with what he was seeing. She had done the same. 

The folder contained every known incident of social services coming into Justin Foley’s life. It was full of mandatory reporting from schoolteachers of the boy’s mysterious bruises or other signs of abuse (often stamped as investigated and unsubstantiated). Investigations into his mother’s ex-boyfriends. Three reports detailing how and why Justin had been removed from his home and taken into care. Photos accompanied these instances—revolting, garish close-ups of cigarette burns, scratches, and bruises. 

Matt paused on these photos, the distress on his face plain to see. She knew what he was feeling. It was what she had felt. It was disgust and anger, then sympathy and pity, and then, finally, the paralyzers: helplessness and uncertainty.

“Lainie–" Matt’s voice was quiet, breaking a little, but also firm. “This is not on us.” 

She had expected his response.

She knew adoption would not be a panacea, that a home and a bed and a full belly would not miraculously take a damaged, troubled boy and turn him into a model citizen and son. She also knew there was no such thing. 

She and Matt had raised Clay for 17 years, given him a strong foundation and then put in the grueling work, gently correcting him when he started to stray and resorting to aggressively yanking him back with angry words and remonstrations when he ventured too far. There had been all of those fraught, anxious hours debating what to do, how to punish him, how to get him to talk to them... and what had it come to? 

This year had proven that all their parenting work had, in some ways, been in vain. Her baby boy had been hurt, was hurting still, was veering off in frightful directions and getting mired up in all the things she swore would never touch him—drugs, violence, heartache, _death_.

And this was the boy she had raised, who had never lacked for food or shelter or attention. She didn’t have to wonder about what abuse he had suffered or what falsehoods he had assimilated into his self-concept. She didn't have to worry if cruelty had been presented as acceptable behavior in his formative years and if, as a result, he would model that behavior and pay it on to others.

With Justin, it wouldn’t be a second Clay, a brand new baby ready for molding. It wasn’t even like starting over with a blank slate of a 17-year-old child. No, the neglect and the abuse of Justin's past was a dirty slate that would have to be scrubbed at before forward progress could be made. Trust would have to be established amidst a background of real, deep trauma and the ever-present quotidian teenage angst. 

And there was Clay to think about too. There was a long history between Justin and Clay that she could glimpse around the edges of their interactions, one that spoke of resentment and pain. There were things she did not know about how their lives had come to intersect, and she suspected it was not friendship that had initially brought them together but something darker. Perhaps they had even come together out of a stark necessity, like reaching out a hand to grab a thorny branch to pull yourself out of quicksand, not caring about the searing pain of the needles ripping through your skin because all you wanted was to be back on solid ground.

She fully knew why Matt was reluctant. She had been, too. She had not planned on having another child, especially not this late in the game. They had Clay, and he was the light of their lives. He was also enough of a challenge to occupy all the parental impulses they felt they had to fulfill. And yet—

“Look at page 24, Matt. Read it and imagine if it were Clay.”

She could tell he didn’t want to do it, was scared of getting pulled into her headspace, of seeing something that would shock him into agreeing, an emotional acquiescence. But that wasn’t what she wanted, and it wasn’t what this was.

Page 24 wasn’t a clinical detailing of physical abuse or neglect (although there were a heartbreaking number of pages dedicated to those topics). Instead, it was a school assignment, a “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up” prompt that a teacher had turned in to the school’s administration. It had been later logged with social services when an additional report (this time of untreated lice) was formally investigated.

 

 **“What I Want to Be When I Grow Up”**  
By: Justin

_I want to have food. House with running water. No bugs. I want to have a bed. I want toys like Bryce has. No one selling my toys. I want to have needles like mommy becaz they make her happy._

_I want to be alive and not hurt._

 

It was so simple, yet reading it had crushed her. She still had all of Clay’s old elementary school writings, his what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-ups: he wanted to be an astronaut, he wanted to be an engineer who designed robots, he wanted to be a dog trainer. 

But he had never wanted to be alive. 

To be free from pain. 

If the events of the last year had demonstrated anything to her, it was that, when it came to helping other people, the bar was set too low. If the minimum was done, people felt good about themselves, and if they happened to do a little bit more, society would praise them, give them a blue ribbon, a well-done stamp of approval.

Which was useless.

The work that ended up making a difference in someone’s life, the real work, was selfless. No one acknowledged it, because it was insipid. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t pulling someone off a ledge to applause from the crowds below or pushing them out of the way of a speeding car. It was woven into a thousand thankless moments. 

Checking if someone was okay, then checking again the next day, then checking on the third day and being rebuked and turned away... but coming again on day four, ready to endure any unpleasantness for the slightest chance of being helpful. It was making progress only to have to retread the same ground again and again... Going forward full of exuberant energy and then sliding back all the way to the start. Every parent worth his or her weight had to do it. They had done it with Clay, and they were still doing it. They would always have to do it. Success was never realized, respite never attained. 

And here she was, suggesting that they add another child, and, this time, they didn’t have the luxury of a trusting infant hand reaching out to them instinctually. Of a love unburdened with conditions. It was no small task. (It was also the most important task of all.)

Matt had long since finished reading. He was not looking at her. He was shaking his head, scratching his chin. An internal battle.

“I don’t know what to say, Matt. I know it won’t be easy. Hell, I’ll probably regret it three months from now. 

"And Clay, even if he agrees to this, will probably resent us at some point for it. Justin will definitely resent us for making him put in the work, and he’ll probably be right to do so because we’ll make mistakes and give him the wrong work to do in the first place. I don’t know how to do this. But we’ve got to try. 

"We’ve got to try because no one else will. There are all these forgotten children, Matt. These 'problem children.' They come from abuse and from neglect and from depravity, and we all feel sorry for them. We pity them, but we can’t be bothered to take them in because they’re too damaged and they’d be too much work. 

"I've seen it, time and again. We take kids out of bad environments, if we’re lucky enough to notice they are in them in the first place, and we put them in new environments that are often just as bad—group homes or juvenile detention centers or maybe in a series of foster homes where they learn they’re a burden to be shuffled around like a piece of unwanted luggage. And then they turn 18, and we stop feeling sorry for them. We no longer make excuses for their behavior or give them the benefit of the doubt. Because at that point their actions must be purely the result of their own choices. It must be entirely their own fault for the situations they find themselves in. 

"I know I’ve never wanted another child because we have Clay. And he's everything, he always has been. But I guess the thing that changed it for me _was_ Clay. I don’t think he invited Justin into our home from a desire to help him; in fact, I know he didn’t. But, when we were on the courthouse stairs and Justin got arrested, I saw in Clay what I want to see in us. A desire to save this boy, to really save him. Maybe that’s not possible, but I want to try. ”

She knew her voice was shaking. She was never this way in court—but then, it had never been her own case she was pleading. She could see tears in Matt’s eyes and didn’t know what to make of it. Had she pushed too hard for something that he didn’t want? 

He was walking toward her, his lips tight, his face unreadable. But then, he smiled, a small laugh escaping. “God, you always could make a closing argument.”

Lainie’s stomach dropped. “I’m not trying to convince you. I want you to agree to this because it comes from you.”

Matt shook his head, then stepped to the counter and picked up the page with the photos, the terrible photos of a black and blue child with hopeless, empty eyes.

“Jesus, that’s not what I meant,” he murmured, gazing at the photo. “I just–, I get it, what you’re saying. We have to be all in.” 

She watched him turn to the first page of the file, where there was a photo of a young Justin. It was the very first time he had been removed from his mother. He was innocent and adorable—brown floppy hair; wide, inquisitive eyes. She saw Matt's face soften, the same way it did when he looked at Clay.

“We have to commit to him like we did with Clay. Is that what you’re saying?”

She gripped the table. He seemed to get it, but she had to make sure he understood. The root of it, the crux of it. “Yes. The moment Clay was born, he was ours unconditionally, and no matter what difficulties he threw at us, we had to face them and overcome them. There was no age limit at which he suddenly was not our responsibility, no option to return him back to sender.”

“Return him to sender? Now there’s an idea." Matt chuckled dryly. "Every child should come with that button. Of course, there'd also need to be a 'Cancel Last Request. I've Cooled Down And Want My Child Back.'" 

His teasing tone washed over her like a dam bursting. If he could tease, he had decided, and they were okay. 

“So... you want to do this?”

His arms around her were a balm, a solidarity, a promise.

“I did feel a connection with the kid, Lainie. He fit right in, almost effortlessly, almost too perfectly, and maybe that means something. Maybe it means this is where he belongs. With us. So, yes." He hesitated. “If Clay agrees.”

She smiled. “That goes without saying.”

Lainie was a mother worth her weight and Clay’s consent on the matter was a stipulation the lawyer in her would never violate. But she thought she knew her son’s heart. And her heart could easily accommodate another son. 

Another beginning. 

Another miracle.

A second son: Justin. _Justin_ , it was a beautiful name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been emotionally compromised by Justin Foley being adopted by the Jensens. It blew me away in the show when they went this direction with Justin's character (and Clay's character as well). I love that it was Clay who asked Justin to be adopted and wouldn't change it, but it got me thinking:
> 
> Mr. and Mrs. Jensen knew Justin for less than 2 weeks before he got arrested. They knew he was using heroin, they thought that he had broken the window of their home, they knew how he was involved in the Jessica-Bryce situation... And yet they quickly decide to adopt him. Which is incredible. And amazing. But how did that conversation go?
> 
> Basically, we need more Mr. and Mrs. Jensens in the world.
> 
> For the grand total of two people who are interested in this obscure missing scene made up of non-major characters in the show, thanks for taking the time to read this!
> 
> Also, please feel free to cry with me in the comments.


	2. Idiotic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You want to adopt Justin. Justin Foley?! Are you insane?” Clay reacts to the news.

“You want to adopt Justin. Justin Foley?! Are you insane?”

He was sitting on the couch next to his father, his mother staring at him serenely from the chair, as if she hadn’t just thrown out the most idiotic suggestion he had ever heard in his life.

Clay supposed that, in a way, this was his fault. He had snuck Justin into his bedroom like an abandoned puppy, and even though the puppy had (almost literally) shit the bed and had made a general mess of things, his parents had taken one look at his sad little eyes and messy hair and decided to keep him.

Great. It was fucking great. Really, he should have known better than to hide Justin in his room in the first place, but he had thought it would be a one-night annoyance, not a lease to stay in Clay’s life for perpetuity.

Reason was needed here. His parents would respond to reason. 

“You already filled out the paperwork to emergency foster him. I thought that was what we were doing.” Clay was already finding it hard to stick with reason, as he noticed his voice cracking in an embarrassing way. Okay, so maybe a little snark was justified here as well. “So, why don’t we foster Justin and adopt a puppy? Okay? Sound good?” He nodded his head vigorously, as if that would make the assent universal.

His mother and father gave him blank stares. He knew he probably sounded manic or emotional, but Justin _fucking_ Foley. . . becoming his brother? This was not happening.

His dad shifted uneasily on the couch. “You want a dog?” he managed. 

Clay groaned. Leave it to his father to get distracted by his words and completely miss the point.

“Does Justin like dogs?” his mother put in. Clay turned to her in disbelief. What the hell?! But she had a slight smirk on her face. God damn it. Two could play at that game.

He turned to his father. “I would actually like a dog, Dad, thank you. And after taking care of Justin for a week, I think a puppy would be a piece of cake. A lot less messy. Would probably actually listen to what we say.”

“You shouldn’t compare Justin to a dog, son,” his dad chided him. Clay groaned. God, the man was clueless sometimes, really.

“Honey, I think you’re trying to distract us here.” His mom got up from the chair and sat beside him on the couch. She ruffled his hair lightly. Clay fought the urge to push her hand away.

“We’re not ambushing you,” she tried to assure him. “We want to know what you want and that’s it. No strings. No expectations.”

Clay looked to his left at his father’s earnest, open gaze and then to his right at his mother’s gentle, concerned eyes. 

“Ugh, you guys really want to do this? Because I think you need to do some, I don’t know, market research first or something. Because Justin’s–“. How could he explain it in a way they would understand? “Well, he’s a major pain in the ass, for one, and a major douche–“

“Clay,” his mother rebuked sharply.

“What? I sorry I don’t have the proper language to express Justin Foley to you without cursing. It’s actually impossible, I think.”

“Clay.” His mother’s hand left his hair and rested on his leg, squeezing a little more tightly than she probably realized. “You do realize that we’ve met Justin, right?”

“Yeah, for like two weeks though. And I know he looks all vulnerable and pathetic like a–” _Do not say puppy again._ God, he was really spinning here. “Like a–, I don’t know, I just mean–, he’s got a lot of issues, all right?” And now he was underselling it. _A lot of issues._ What an understatement. _Jesus._

“We do know what we’re getting into, Clay. More than you think,” his father said. “But this decision is up to you, son. That’s why we’re talking to you. Nothing’s been decided.”

“Okay. Why is it up to me exactly?” He slouched back on the chair and tried not to look sullen, not that it wasn’t deserved given this shitshow.

“Well, several reasons.” His mom leaned back against the cushions, her shoulder brushing his. “You are the one that smuggled him here in the first place. But, more importantly, this decision, out of the three of us, would affect you the most. Emotionally speaking. And when it comes to decisions like this, your desires carry the most weight for us. We are not going to do something that would harm you.”

Okay, this was not the track he was expecting. “Harm me? Mom, come on.” 

When did his mother get so dramatic? Justin was a pain in the ass, but he wasn’t harmful (except maybe to Clay’s shoes and his bed and his stress levels.) He had, in some respects, even been the opposite of harmful. Well, okay, backtrack that thought. Maybe Clay would have agreed about Justin being harmful not that long ago... He had threatened to beat him up. Had stolen his bike. Had been the very worst of jock culture. 

“I thought we were fostering him,” he rejoined weakly. Isn’t this how they had started this conversation forever ago?

“Well, yes,” his mom said. “But, once the emergency foster runs out, he’ll become a ward of the state, and he’ll have to be placed in a group home. At that point, he'd no longer be matriculated at Liberty High School.”

“But can’t we still foster him? Like ordinary, regular run-of-the-mill foster once the emergency foster runs out?” Clay suddenly felt hazy. His parents were way too smart not to have seen this solution, which meant–, what did it mean, exactly? 

His dad nodded. “That is an option, yes. We could do that. But Justin will turn 18 before he finishes high school and at that point...”

“He could still live with us at that point,” his mom continued. “But any legal rights we would have had would disappear. We couldn’t make legal or medical decisions for him or be a financial support system for college. Or we couldn’t–”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Clay interrupted. “College? You think Justin is going to college?” 

“Is there a reason why he wouldn’t?” His mother seemed genuinely curious.

He almost wanted to laugh in her face. But, well, Clay supposed Justin had once had a shot at a basketball scholarship, which would have meant college. That was probably off the table now. College seemed... impossible. Oh God, was he being classist? He could hear Tony’s voice in his head giving him a lecture on privilege. “So because Justin is poor, because he has an addict for a mother, because Justin is an addict himself with a juvenile record... Does that make it impossible for him to go to college?” _Thanks, Tony_.

“No, I guess not,” he answered. “But it doesn’t matter. Mom, Dad, you have clearly lost perspective here. I think this is an insane idea. Like batshit crazy.”

He glanced at his mother’s face, expecting to see disappointment or anger. Instead, he saw acceptance—as if she had been expecting this response from him all along. For some reason, the realization made his fists clench and his face heat up.

“This is a big decision, Clay,” she told him, removing her hand from his leg. “We’ll give you some time to think it over. You might change your mind. But, if not, that’s okay too.”

“Great.” Clay got up from the couch. “But I don’t need time to think about it. My answer is no. I don’t want you to adopt him.” He headed toward the stairs but paused at the first step. God, was he being a douche himself right now? 

“Fostering is great,” he relented, still not looking back at them. “I don’t want you to think that I’m not okay with that. That’s what I wanted. Okay?”

“That’s fine, Clay,” his dad quickly assured.

“Yes, perfectly acceptable.” His mom’s voice seemed slightly strained all of the sudden, which annoyed him. But they had left it up to him. They couldn’t make him the bad guy for saying what he wanted.

He stomped up the stairs and flung himself onto his bed. He turned his head to the low sofa where Justin had slept, where he had sweated and vomited and basically been the worst houseguest imaginable. It was also the place where he had heard Justin crying one night when he thought Clay was asleep—not loudly, not purposefully, just small little hiccups of pain across the dark bedroom.

I’m not a jerk, Clay told himself. Hell, I’m practically a saint after everything he did. After how he treated me. After Hannah. After Jessica.

He shifted restlessly.

Justin’s not entirely a jerk though, he reluctantly admitted to himself.

He saved me. He came back for me. 

I’d probably be in jail now if it hadn't been for him.

Or I’d be dead.

 _God._ He dug his fists into his eyes, suddenly fighting tears for no reason he could rationalize.

Clay wanted Justin to be safe, and not because he owed him, but because he genuinely wanted the suffering to cease. There had been so much pain spread into the cracks of so many people. And the possibility for there to be some redemption, some peace, for even just one single person (even if that person was Justin Foley)... Clay could not turn away from it. 

He wanted his parents to help Justin get back on track. To give him a place to stay. _But... I don’t want to be his brother. Why is that such a bad thing?_

It was perfectly reasonable.

It was purely emotional.

It was a fair compromise. 

It was a cop-out.

He closed his eyes and tried to shut off his brain. Against his will, the debate continued. Argument. Counterargument. Pro. Con.

Why did it seem like his parents were no longer the opposing team? Why did it seem like the person he was trying so hard to convince was himself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only meant to write one more chapter to explain Clay's thought process, and it turned into this. Which now requires a part 3 to get Clay to "maybe it's a good idea." 
> 
> Thanks for all your comments. I never expected so many of them, <3


	3. Maybe It's A Good Idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after Hannah's memorial in 2x13 but before Monet's.

Clay gazed out of the window of the car, fearing that he would see Hannah on every street corner.

 _"You think you can wish me away that easily?"_ He imagined her voice, accusative and cold.

But it was only his imagination. Each street corner came and went. She was gone, put to rest, a specter who would no longer haunt him in the waking world. Now she was only a specter of memory—forever locked in the past, never to be changed.

Still, his nerves thrummed with anxiety and sweat beaded in the cracks of his palms. A part of him feared that he was losing his grip on reality, that something in him had broken. It seemed only yesterday, not last month, that he had set off to confront Bryce and had almost done what he had told Hannah he could never forgive her for.

His mother and father were quiet in the front seat as they drove back home from Hannah’s memorial. It was to be a quick stop. His mother needed to pick up the documents required to receive custody of Justin from the social services worker at Juvenile Detention.

Looking at their profiles in the front seat, guilt crept in. A month ago, he had almost left his parents childless, haunting simulacra of Mr. and Mrs. Baker. 

_“Clay Jensen, the third student at Liberty High to attempt suicide in the past year, was a friend of Hannah Baker and Alex Standall. . .”_

Suddenly, Clay found it hard to breathe. He dug his fingers into his sweaty palms, seeking purchase, seeking pain to ground him.

_Just don't lose your shit, okay?_

Justin.

Justin had said that to him on the final day of the trial. Justin, of all people, a boy who had lost his shit more times in the last few months than Clay could believe one person capable. 

But it was Justin who had, against all odds, been calm and steady when Clay had brought the gun up to his temple, when he had sought to run away to the one place where there would be an assured end.

And Justin, who always ran, had stayed rooted. The irony was not lost on Clay.

A year ago, he could never have put himself in Justin's position—understood his reactions, his choices. Now, he thought he understood a little too well. He saw something in Justin he knew, and it both comforted and terrified him. When Justin had saved Clay from the edge, he had been able to do it because he already knew that edge, had walked it for longer than Clay had. Had accumulated more damage, had scourged his soul. He had told Clay that he wasn't alone. It was as if he were saying: _"The darkness in me checks the darkness in you."_

Maybe that’s what Clay was truly afraid of. Because whether they fostered Justin or they adopted him, the details were the same. Clay would still have to live with him. He’d still have to learn to adjust and make concessions, to deal with new annoyances. And, either way, he’d gain someone to have his back. Someone whom, in turn, he’d have to look out for. By contrast, the permanent option—adoption—would mean that Clay was acknowledging something. He didn’t quite understand it or know what to call it. It was an absolution and a restoration. A brotherhood conceived out of common purpose and cemented by genuine trust and friendship.

It was:

_His hands straightening Justin’s tie._

__

__

_Justin’s hands gently taking the gun away before Clay did something reckless._

_Tackling Bryce in the hallway to prevent him from attacking Justin._

_Justin turning his back on Bryce to guide Clay back to the car._

_"I need you. Please."_

_"You said you needed me."_

They had reached the house, and his mom was already opening the door to rush inside. She was hurrying so that she could drop Clay off at Monet’s for the memorial gathering.

Fuck it.

Clay scooted forward on the back seat to call out the open door. “Hey, Mom!”

She backtracked and stuck her head back in. “What is it, honey? Do you need something from the house?”

“No, it’s–“ He couldn’t quite get the words out. _Just say it, Clay. Dumbass._

His father turned around in his seat, his eyes concerned.

“About Justin.” Clay’s breath came easily now. “I think we should adopt him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote two versions of this chapter. The first in which Clay is an (improbable) philosopher who believes in intrinsic goodness and The Right Thing™. The second in which Clay is an (improbable) philosopher who believes in instrumental goodness and/or has just read some Nietzsche, idk.
> 
> I went with version two (this version), but I feel kind of 'meh' about it. Oh well.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has commented, given kudos, or bookmarked! I'll definitely be sticking around in this fandom. I'm loving all the season two stories that are popping up!


End file.
